INSIDE BASEBALL.

Steinbrenner seen as siding with union

Dolan squabble just the start of owners' feuding

July 21, 2002|BY PHIL ROGERS.

When the Cleveland Indians' Larry Dolan traded barbs with George Steinbrenner last week, it was anything but the kind of bickering between owners that traditionally has given players an upper hand in labor negotiations.

Some see the exchange between Dolan and Steinbrenner as a sign that Commissioner Bud Selig's coalition is beginning to fracture.

But it was evidence only of what many within Major League Baseball have been saying all along: The Yankees' Steinbrenner is aligned more closely with the stance of the players union than that of his fellow owners in this round of collective bargaining.

If Selig and the owners get what they want, the new deal will cost the Yankees $50 million to $100 million per year.

Steinbrenner has kept a poker face about the efforts to spread his wealth down the food chain, but that doesn't mean he'll go quietly.

Steinbrenner has a major ally in players association leader Donald Fehr.

The union supports the "split-pool" method of revenue sharing, which would barely increase the Yankees' share by 10 percent.

The owners' "straight pool" could increase it by more than 100 percent.

Dolan explained what he meant when he charged "George is not spending George's money."

But it was a reference to the inequity in baseball's revenue streams, which have grown out of whack because previous commissioners weren't wise enough to anticipate the increased importance of cable television.

When the Yankees play Kansas City or Minnesota, including games at Kauffman Stadium or the Metrodome, respectively, they receive about 15 times as much as the Royals and Twins in local broadcast revenues. Oakland, Anaheim, Toronto and Tampa Bay are in almost as bad shape.

And even teams such as the White Sox and Boston receive only about a third as much as the Yankees.

"Baseball cannot continue with its current economics," Dolan said. "It just can't. It's not in any of our interests to have baseball be such that each season it's going to be the Yankees against some other team in the World Series. That can't continue."

Steinbrenner fired back at Dolan, who is downsizing the Indians' payroll after losing a reported $14 million last year.

"While I recognize the pressures that he and the Dolan family trusts are facing," he said, "I do not believe Mr. Dolan appreciates what it has taken to build the New York Yankees, to develop its brand and provide a winning team for New York and Yankee fans everywhere."

Houston's Drayton McLane and Texas' Tom Hicks are among the owners who recently have echoed Dolan's comments.

"You can't have a system where the two New York teams, just because of the market they're in, have such an advantage over the rest of the league," Hicks said. "They have to play someone, unless they just want to just play each other."

When Selig and then-MLB negotiator Richard Ravitch convened the contentious revenue-sharing meetings at Kohler, Wis., in 1993, 10 teams were in the big-market camp. In the current negotiations, the only teams who still align themselves that way are the Yankees, New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Owners are trying to increase the percentage of local revenues that are shared from 20 to 50 percent. Selig is confident he has the votes to bring about such a major change, but nobody knows how Steinbrenner will react if MLB gets its way in negotiations with the union. But Steinbrenner's comments about building the Yankees franchise and developing "its brand" could be the basis of an explosive lawsuit.

Battening the hatches: Hoarding money like a squirrel putting away acorns, McLane has ordered the Astros' staff to suspend negotiations with its unsigned draft picks, including first-rounder Derick Grigsby. Minnesota is following a similar policy, saying first-rounder Denard Span is the only unsigned pick it will attempt to sign.

Houston originally budgeted $4 million for signings, but McLane turned off the tap after only about $1 million was spent. He said he made the decision to suspend signings after consulting with club President Tal Smith and general manager Gerry Hunsicker.

"We all collectively agreed that if we have a strike, it's going to be about cash flow," said McLane, who estimated he has lost about $105 million in his decade as an owner. "It makes no sense to do anything else. We have around 170 players in our minor-league system, and if our players go on strike, all our revenue goes with them. We have to give back the ticket money, the signage money we've already collected, the naming-rights money. It all goes away."

With no movement on the economic issues, the union gets closer to setting a strike date. It's clear that day will be later than Aug. 12, which was the date Fehr picked in 1994, and might be as late as mid-September.

Finding relief: Attention deficit disorder is not just a problem for small boys. Toronto left-hander Scott Eyre recently was diagnosed with the condition and has been performing better since joining teammate Justin Miller in taking a new drug, Concerta, for ADD.